kreed99 said: I agree with previous sentiments - if something doesnt follow the rules of gravity/natural laws there better be a very specific magical/fantasy reason for it. It needs to be an “obvious” departure from the real world. I dont want to fall into a river and have it carry me upstream..... While im on the topic, currents? I vote yes.
See I don't know a current flowing up a fricken moutain sounds amazing to me and maybe its the only way you can get up said mountain. I would put something like a giant creature sucking the water up the mountain or something to explain it, might not be completely realistic but would make for a awesome unique adventure.
F realism!
P.S.
I do like the idea of currents in general though something I don't think I have experieinced much before in a MMO.
Definitely have no issues with weird topography or geography that goes against "realism."
I'd have no issues with a river that flows in reverse in a fantasy world, could be any number of reasons for it (one could be a powerful water elemental). Same with rivers in odd places, land bridges, mountains, etc.
Naunet said:I still would like to know how literal this "collision" is. So how does it happen? Surely we're not talking planet-sized collisions. But even then, what happens when a landmass from another world "collides" with Terminus? Is it something that just magically appears and blends into the existing land? Or is it a more literal collision, where a landmass comes crashing down upon the surface of Terminus, likely resulting in great upheaval of the land/water around it? Can you imagine... Think about the global effects of a single asteroid impact 66 million years ago. And these chunks of worlds arriving at Terminus are likely far larger than that particular asteroid.
Eep!
I'm struggling with this a bit, too. There's no way a collision of worlds, much less several of them, could "deliver" the peoples and architecture of each world to another. One collision would result in a big molten ball with nothing remaining of the previous inhabitants. I'm really curious what the lore will say about how these worlds came together.
I also don't see why the world can't be extreme and dramatic without such an anomaly-rife backstory. Magic alone can explain so many sentient races coming together on a single world.
Akilae said:I'm struggling with this a bit, too. There's no way a collision of worlds, much less several of them, could "deliver" the peoples and architecture of each world to another. One collision would result in a big molten ball with nothing remaining of the previous inhabitants. I'm really curious what the lore will say about how these worlds came together.I also don't see why the world can't be extreme and dramatic without such an anomaly-rife backstory. Magic alone can explain so many sentient races coming together on a single world.
Haha yeah I mean, Earth formed due to the collision of smaller chunks of rock. The heat generated from those collisions meant that Earth was indeed a molten ball for a long time before it very slowly cooled and the crust hardened. So I have to assume that these "collisions" are somehow much more gentle (though it would be kinda neat if there was some kind of disastrous ripple throughout existing Terminus whenever a new world arrived).
"Magic" certainly plays into it as well, but that magic needs to follow some consistent rules. The first thing that any good fantasy author will tell you about creating a fictional world is that consistency must abide above all. You can have something wildly fantastic possible in your fictional universe, but it must 1) be logically explained by present mechanics in your universe, and 2) those rules that allowed for the wildly fantastic event must be applied consistently to everything else in your fictional universe.
Tylee said:A couple questions for the community; Do things like this bother you as much as they do me? What other aspects of geography are often overlooked when designing fantasy maps? Are there any aspects of the current Pantheon map/atlas that you would like to be improved upon?
As for the rivers, I could not care less. But the physical layout of the interconnected zones does matter to me. Because we're in a zoned world care still needs to be given to the zones not overlaping in some extra dimension. By this I mean if you are going east in a zone and reach a zoneline, the next zone should not have any part which extends back the way you came (west). That area should be within the previous zone. Also, if I exit a zone facing east I should enter the next zone still facing east.
Now some might say that the inter-zone space could be any size/shape which the zoning mechanic just glosses over (as in not showing you that you actually walked through a narrow canyon that twisted and turned and exited facing north when the entry point was facing east) but I'm against that approach. The connections should act as if the zones are contiguous in a logical and realistic manner. The only point where I say this does not necessarily need to matter is where you are teleported into a zone via some means of magic or portal mechanic. EQ1 examples were going into Temple of Veeshan or Dragon Necropolis.
Naunet said:Akilae said:I'm struggling with this a bit, too. There's no way a collision of worlds, much less several of them, could "deliver" the peoples and architecture of each world to another. One collision would result in a big molten ball with nothing remaining of the previous inhabitants. I'm really curious what the lore will say about how these worlds came together.I also don't see why the world can't be extreme and dramatic without such an anomaly-rife backstory. Magic alone can explain so many sentient races coming together on a single world.
Haha yeah I mean, Earth formed due to the collision of smaller chunks of rock. The heat generated from those collisions meant that Earth was indeed a molten ball for a long time before it very slowly cooled and the crust hardened. So I have to assume that these "collisions" are somehow much more gentle (though it would be kinda neat if there was some kind of disastrous ripple throughout existing Terminus whenever a new world arrived).
"Magic" certainly plays into it as well, but that magic needs to follow some consistent rules. The first thing that any good fantasy author will tell you about creating a fictional world is that consistency must abide above all. You can have something wildly fantastic possible in your fictional universe, but it must 1) be logically explained by present mechanics in your universe, and 2) those rules that allowed for the wildly fantastic event must be applied consistently to everything else in your fictional universe.
If I had to explain it, I would explain it through a multi-dimension theory where they all converge on one point. So it isn't so much as them colliding but simply the fusion of dimensions on one spot. Regular magic could not explain it but dimensional magic could, the concept of the 4th dimension is very close to this that there is another whole plane we can not see right in front of you. If you were able to see that plane something like the covergence of multiple planets might be possible if not already happening.
Obviously Aradune's opinions carry a *lot* more weight than ours.
If different segments of Terminus have different physical laws because things simply worked differently where they came from, and the segments retained their original physical laws, that is perfectly consistant with what many of us are saying. As long as the entire segment is consistant with the physical laws that apply to it and not simply random. Unless randomness *is* the heart of the physical laws there.
I hope that is what Aradune is saying. If he is saying that realism is boring and the designers should do whatever they are in the mood for with no concerns about realism or consistancy I simply disagree. Which won't stop me from enjoying Terminus I will just ...cringe ... now and then.
Tylee said:
A couple questions for the community; Do things like this bother you as much as they do me? What other aspects of geography are often overlooked when designing fantasy maps? Are there any aspects of the current Pantheon map/atlas that you would like to be improved upon?
I am not so bothered by "non realismus" but I am extremely bothered by contradictions .
As I am a cartographer , I already commented about this issue and posted examples of non realistic yet non contradictory maps here 3 years ago : https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2184/updated-map/view/page/1 .
Non realistic just means that the subject (f.ex a dragon or a planet) doesn't look like anything known in the real Universe where we live . Contradictory is something completely different - f.ex if you say "A unicorn is a horse with a horn on its head" and "A unicorn is a snake with blue scales ." are both true then you efficiently destroyed the meaning of the word unicorn . This is what contradictions do - they destroy words and the concepts behind them . The more contradictions you pile up , the more words and concepts you destroy untill you finish by destroying any communication alltogether because any word may mean anything . The world where "He goes home" means for some people "I will kill you" is not only a non realistic world but it is a contradictory non sense world . A contradictory fantasy world is a world with no consistency and no immersion and most people notice that many things don't make any sense .
Anyway in every fantasy world 99 % of the concepts are always realistic for the simple reason that 99 % of objects and processes that we see are just identical to what we know from our Universe - lava is hot , cold freezes water , wind moves grass and trees , poison kills , bows propel arrows , metals are forged , stones are minerals etc etc . Now coming to the cartography subject .
Why rivers flow downwards ? Because that's what gravity makes them to do . Is there gravity on Pantheon ? Of course ! Trees grow vertically , if you drop something it falls , creatures can walk or run ; objects have weight . So obviously in a non contradictory fantasy world with gravity like Pantheon , rivers flow downwards like in our Universe IF you leave them alone . Does it mean that they must ALWAYS flow downwards ? Of course not ! You just need technology (a pump) or magics (a magical pump) . But if you want to have them (sometimes) flow upwards , you better show a device (magical or not) which makes it so . If you don't then you just added a contradiction to the world which lost in believability .
There are many other geographical issues which are similar . For instance Terminus rotates . Why ? Because you have day and night . Unless the sun is very small and rotates around Terminus . It rotates around a north - south pole axis . Why ? Because the sun rises in the east . From there follows that there is less energy from the sun on the poles than on equator what means that poles are cold and equator is hot . So if Terminus is left alone , there will be ice on poles and deserts on tropics like on our Earth . Does it mean that there can't be a hot desert on a pole ? Of course not but , like with the upwards flowing rivers , you better design a huge oven (magical or not) which explains why a pole is hot . If you don't , it just adds another contradiction which destroys farther believability .
Finally these points you mentionned are important for immersion , believability and consistence of every fantasy world . There are 99 % of mundane details (like rivers , poles , weather , trees , buildings etc) which are better left to their natural (e.g realistic) behaviour because it spares time and the developpers don't need to write pages of lore and implement hundreds of devices to make their world non contradictory . The creativity is better used to the 1 % which is left like creatures , races , culture and quest design .
Tolkien has perfectly understood that and that's why Middle Earth is generally considered as a role model for a consistent , non contradictory fantasy (e.g non realistic) world .
Tylee said:Do things like this bother you as much as they do me?
Nope. What bothers me is when the flying unicorns can't fly over a mountains.
@Kittik - can't tell if you're trying to imply one thing or another with this photo, but its a reservoir and not a naturally occurring river ecosystem. So if it appears to go against many of the hallmark signatures of natural river/stream ecology, that's because its man made.
Don't want to create walls of text so not qouting
Collision of worlds - you guys seem to keep thinking in terms of mundane science not a fantasy world. For instance how many people realize there were a few gods involved with this whole situation. What limits does a god have, what happens when they affect mundane science with their powers?
Tylee said:First off, I would like to acknowledge that I understand the current "Atlas" is likely just a conceptual first draft. It has a cartoony asthetic with disproportionate features. It is not meant to be 1:1 accurate map of the world. That being said, I have concerns that the current design could have a real impact on the actual map and zone design if used as a reference. I am going to focus on rivers as that is where I am seeing the most problems.
Rivers usually start at mountains and end in the ocean. They always move along the easiest available path from high elevation to low. They should never flow parralel to mountains and hills.
Rivers rarely completely cross a continent or other landmass; they NEVER start in the same body of water they empty into.
Rivers never form loops. If they appear to, these are actually ring-shaped lakes. Lakes form in a low area surrounded by higher areas, even if we’re only talking less than a hundred feet of difference, so where you choose to have the river exit the lake means that area is lower. Rivers always join together as they flow toward the sea; they never branch out. Exceptions are made in flat deltas, where the river deposits islands of silt as it empties into an ocean or lake. These are typically small (no bigger than a large city) but can fan out over large distances if the terrain is flat enough.
It is my hope that the devs take realistic geography into consideration as they are refining the map/zone design. I believe these considerations will go a long way in creating a believable, immersive world. Certain exceptions can be made to the rules, especially in a fantasy setting, but these exceptions should be rare and have explanations. A river may empty into a sink hole connected to the aquifer instead of the ocean, a canal may have been constructed to divert it, it may be enchanted to flow against gravity, but in order to do this the devs need to be aware how these things work in real life so that they can consider the justifcation for why they might deviate.
A couple questions for the community; Do things like this bother you as much as they do me? What other aspects of geography are often overlooked when designing fantasy maps? Are there any aspects of the current Pantheon map/atlas that you would like to be improved upon?
Edit: https://wiki.opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/OGF:Making_realistic_rivers Has a lot of great explanations and illustrations
I can appreciate your thoughts on this and would like to say anything that helps make this game more immersive for people I'm totally for. That being said bare in mind one of the things that makes making a fantasy world so wonderful and fantastic is that they don't have to live within the confines of or abide by the laws that govern our reality in any way. This was one of the things that always interested me in reading fantasy novels actually. Simply put, they're an amazing way to escape the mundane.
Deadshade said:Why rivers flow downwards ? Because that's what gravity makes them to do . Is there gravity on Pantheon ? Of course ! Trees grow vertically , if you drop something it falls , creatures can walk or run ; objects have weight . So obviously in a non contradictory fantasy world with gravity like Pantheon , rivers flow downwards like in our Universe IF you leave them alone . Does it mean that they must ALWAYS flow downwards ? Of course not ! You just need technology (a pump) or magics (a magical pump) . But if you want to have them (sometimes) flow upwards , you better show a device (magical or not) which makes it so . If you don't then you just added a contradiction to the world which lost in believability .
Thank you for your post Deadshade, I agree with everything you said. I do not expect perfect realism. I do expect logical consistency.
To illustrate what I wrote .
A friend , also a cartographer , took the actual "map" of Terminus and transformed it so that all inconsistencies were removed . The result is a fantasy (e.g non realistic) map in which there are no contradictions left even if its topography is exactly identical to the present Terminus topography .
You may notice that if you insert the Atlas draft in a consistent setting , what we see now is only a (small) part of northern hemisphere . The continents that we have, cover a surface which is approximately equivalent to Eurasia on the Earth . Actually as he also computed consistent scales , the part of Terminus sofar shown covers approximately an area between 20 ° and 90 ° latitude north and 0 ° and 180 ° longitude East . So basically what we have is less than 1/4 of whole Terminus . The overall size of Terminus is slightly smaller than Earth .
This allows f.ex to deduce where the missing Dwarven continent must be . As it is a large icy , glacial region , it is either near the northern pole on the part of northern hemisphere that is not yet shown (e.g east or west of the shown regions) or near the southern pole VERY far south of the regions sofar shown .
Tylee said:Deadshade said:Why rivers flow downwards ? Because that's what gravity makes them to do . Is there gravity on Pantheon ? Of course ! Trees grow vertically , if you drop something it falls , creatures can walk or run ; objects have weight . So obviously in a non contradictory fantasy world with gravity like Pantheon , rivers flow downwards like in our Universe IF you leave them alone . Does it mean that they must ALWAYS flow downwards ? Of course not ! You just need technology (a pump) or magics (a magical pump) . But if you want to have them (sometimes) flow upwards , you better show a device (magical or not) which makes it so . If you don't then you just added a contradiction to the world which lost in believability .
Thank you for your post Deadshade, I agree with everything you said. I do not expect perfect realism. I do expect logical consistency.
Well if you expect logical consistency I don't think you'll like this game as it has magic in it and there is no logic in magic.
Tylee said:...Rivers usually start at mountains and end in the ocean. They always move along the easiest available path from high elevation to low. They should never flow parralel to mountains and hills.
Rivers rarely completely cross a continent or other landmass; they NEVER start in the same body of water they empty into.
Rivers never form loops. If they appear to, these are actually ring-shaped lakes.
Rivers always join together as they flow toward the sea; they never branch out.
I'm pretty sure you are completely wrong on every point.
And you are making assumptions about elevation changes without knowing anything about those.
Your statements declare absolute "rules" and there are exceptions to everyone of those.
fazool said:Your statements declare absolute "rules" and there are exceptions to everyone of those.
Present examples of these exceptions. You will likely have difficulty, though.
Meanders that are eventually cut off to form oxbow lakes and river deltas that form as the water slows and spreads entering the ocean don't count. :P
@Deadshade: As per my original post, I've generally been operating under the assumption that the present rough map we've been given is only showing us the northern hemisphere. It really is the only way to explain the current biome distribution. xD
Trasak said: @fazool No those are the rules of fluid dynamics. Anything that violates them is man made and powered.
Such topography features (by the way not GEography) is not caused by fluid dynamics but by the effects of the fluid on the surrounding land (such as erosion).
BTW I am a mechanical engineer and taught college so I understand what you are alluding to.
The issue is not the lawys of physics, per sa, but the fact that the OP 1) claims such things as river islands essentially don't exist in the real world and 2) jumps to conclusions about rivers flowing upstream by looking at a map (perhaps there is a descending valley you can't see). Finally, there are a lot of other factors that cause topography, not just erosion: tectonic plate movement, earthquakes, ice ages, fauna, etc.
Naunet said:...Present examples of these exceptions. You will likely have difficulty, though.
Meanders that are eventually cut off to form oxbow lakes and river deltas that for...
Ummm actually no.
One of the premises of this thread (and the referncec page on gameworld design you linked) is that river islands are only small.
I grew up in a huge famous river with seven islands.
The St. Lawrence is known as Thousand Islands. There are so many large river islands you can't even Google an answer
